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Robert Roberts (1905–1974) was an English writer, teacher and social historian, noted for the evocative accounts of his working-class youth he gave in The Classic Slum(1971) and A Ragged Schooling (1976). Born and raised in a deprived district of Salford, Roberts left school at 14 for a seven-year apprenticeship as a brass finisher. Sacked once it ended, he spent three years unemployed, and attended evening classes. In 1929, he was hired as a teacher at a commercial college, but was dismissed in 1940 when he was exempted from conscription as a conscientious objector. He then spent years working as a farmhand, as well as teaching and writing. In 1957, he was hired to teach at Strangeways Prison in Manchester; his experiences there inspired his first book, Imprisoned Tongues (1968). In 1971, Roberts published The Classic Slum, a book about his boyhood, intermixed with social and oral history. Widely praised, it has become a key source for understanding the working-class experience in early-20th-century England.